How to build a safer world

IMAGINE MASSACHUSETTS ON FIRE, LITERALLY THE entire state engulfed in flames. That is how much land has already been ravaged—over 5 million acres—in the wildfires of California, Washington and Oregon. With temperatures over 100°F, toxic air blanketed tens of millions of people for weeks, power outages afflicted vast regions, and dozens died from the blazes. Air quality in West Coast cities has ranked among the world’s worst, with Portland’s air at points being almost three times more unhealthy than that in notoriously polluted cities like New Delhi. The scenes of red skies out of America’s West had an unreal quality, as if they came from a different planet. In a sense they do—being portents of the future.

There are many proximate reasons for these forest fires—fireworks, campfires, a stray spark—but there is one large cause that is blindingly clear: human actions that have led to climate change. To put it simply, the world is getting hotter, and that means forests get drier. And we can be sure of one thing: it’s going to get